Welcome back for Episode 38 of Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans. In this episode we present our third artist interview, this one with giant of the field Todd Lockwood. Todd, who did the cover for Brad’s upcoming book The Straits of Galahesh, gives us a look into what inspires him about the field of speculative fiction, why he still doesn’t mind being known as the “dragon guy” in some circles and how the field has changed over his long career–and why the chance to paint Stephen Colbert as a paladin was too good to pass up. If you like what you hear, don’t forget to check back next week when we’ll head back to the world of literature to interview another major player in speculative fiction, Brandon Sanderson. Until then, thanks as always for listening to the show, and please continue to spread the word!

Welcome back for Episode 37 of Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans. In this episode we conclude our series of shows on the work of Mark Hodder with a discussion of some of the specific writing techniques used in his book The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, looking at how the use of characters as foils, attention to theme, meditations on empire and other aspects of writing make Strange Affair such an interesting and enjoyable book…and how aspiring writers can learn to apply these techniques in their own work. We’ll be taking a break next week, but if you enjoy what you hear don’t forget to check back in two weeks for an interview with artist Todd Lockwood, and be on the lookout for our interview with Brandon Sanderson. Until then, thanks as always for listening, and please continue to spread the word about the show!

(Side note: As you’ll hear at the end of this week’s show and will be seeing in more detail in an upcoming post, Speculate! is eligible for nomination in the Best Related Work category of the Hugo awards. Obviously there are a lot of worthy candidates to be nominated for something like this, but we thought you might not know if we didn’t say that we’d love to join that list. So if you’re a member of last year’s, this year’s or next year’s Worldcon, please head over to the official site before March 11, 2012 and consider nominating us (and others of the many choices in all the categories) in the Best Related Work category…and thanks!)

Welcome back for Episode 36 of Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans. In this episode we continue our sequence of shows on the work of Mark Hodder with an interview with the author himself. Mark’s fascinating insights on writing generally, steampunk specifically, and the role of theme in a story–how much punk should you have in your steam?–made this one of our most enjoyable interviews to date, and we hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we did. If you enjoy the interview, don’t forget to check back next week for our concluding show of this triptych, a discussion of some of the writing techniques used in Mark’s book The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack. Until then, thanks as always for listening, and please continue to spread the word about the show!

Welcome back for Episode 35 of Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans. In this episode we start a new sequence of shows on the work of speculative fiction author Mark Hodder, giving our reaction to and review of his book The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack–a cool steampunk novel which doesn’t forget about the punk while it’s presenting the steam! If you enjoy the discussion, don’t forget to check back next week when we’ll interview Mark about this book and his take on steampunk and speculative fiction. Until then, thanks as always for listening, and please continue to spread the word about the show!

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